To recap, Andy asked me, “what are your thoughts about The Economist’s special report on climate change last week, in which they conclude that the risks of climate change, and the likely manageable cost of mitigation, warrant the world, and especially the US, taking prompt action?”

He continues, “This is, obviously, a magazine with impeccable liberal economic (not to mention journalistic) credentials, and one of the sponsors of the Copenhagen Consensus that raised questions about the wisdom of prioritizing climate change. I believe they would not have taken this editorial position five years ago. Do you think they are mistaken in doing so now? What do you see as the salient evidence they missed, if so?”

The special report consists of a number of articles examining the issue of climate change and are available for purchase as a PDF set here. (more…)

The MacLaurin Institute is sponsoring a conference at the University of Minnesota through tomorrow exploring what it means for people to demonstrate a Christian perspective as they live their lives at the interfaces of three “worlds” — natural, engineered, and human. It will also study how Christian virtues ought to influence public and private policies regarding the interaction of these worlds.

“Genetic technologies promise us greater control over creation and its creatures than at any time previously. From a Christian perspective, how do we seek good and avoid harm as we pursue shalom for God’s creation?” From Rev. Dr. Rolf Bouma, “Rules for Intelligent Tinkering: Should Nature Be Engineered?” There will be more on this topic here at the Acton PowerBlog next week, as a I launch a five-part series providing a biblical/theological examination of the creation of human/animal hybrids, or chimeras.

He sums it up this way: “If we believe in global warming and do something about it and it turns out we’re right, then we’re, climatologically speaking, redeemed — if not for ever, at least until some other threat to our existence comes along. If we’re wrong about it, what is the ultimate cost? A world with improved energy efficiency and quite a lot of ugly windmills.”

I responded to Crouch then that “Pascal’s wager is only valid when placed within the context of the eternal and the ultimate. When it is applied to everyday issues, it quickly loses its persuasive power. Crouch’s contention that ‘we have little to lose’ if we exaggerate the threat of global warming displays no recognition of the reality of the future impact of unduly restrictive political policies and environmental regulations.”

You can add Gerard Baker’s contention to Crouch’s, although Baker does note, in agreement with me, I think, that “there is one significant risk that makes this equation slightly different from Pascal’s. There could be high costs of believing in the human role in global warming and being wrong about it. We may have to trade off a lot of economic activity in the next 50 years to lower our carbon emissions.”

As I’ve written before, you don’t need to be a climate change convert to believe that nuclear power represents a very attractive alternative to nonrenewable fossil fuels.

In this lengthy piece in Cosmos magazine, Tim Dean examines the possibility of nuclear reactors based on thorium rather than uranium. Regardless of your position on climate change, and Dean certainly makes it a key point in his article, the essential reality is that “fossil fuels won’t last forever. Current predictions are that we may reach the point of peak production for oil and natural gas within the next decade – after which production levels will continually decline worldwide.”

Even if these predictions are much too cynical with respect to the fossil fuels left, the bottom line is that these are finite, nonrenewable resources. Dean talks about the conditions needed for an alternative energy source besides coal, which is the source of vast amounts of the world’s power: “It should offer abundant power. It also needs to be clean, safe and renewable as well as consistent. And ultimately, it needs to be economical.”

Again, as I’ve said before, “If the purpose of petroleum fuels is to pave the way for their own obsolescence, it’s becoming clearer day by day that this means the embrace of nuclear power.” You don’t have to agree with all of Dean’s analysis, I don’t think, to be intrigued by the possibility of thorium reactors.

Among the advantages of thorium as opposed to uranium: “Thorium is not fissile, so no matter how much thorium you pack together, it will not start splitting atoms and blow up. This is because it cannot undergo nuclear fission by itself and it cannot sustain a nuclear chain reaction once one starts. It’s a wannabe atom splitter incapable of taking the grand title.”

There are some complications, mostly drawing from the fact that thorium cannot self-sustain. As Dean writes, “The main stumbling block until now has been how to provide thorium fuel with enough neutrons to keep the reaction going, and do so in an efficient and economical way.” Dean goes on to describe two recent innovations that have the potential of addressing this stumbling block.

“Can atomic power be green?” asks Dean. Another way of asking the question is whether folks like Greenpeace will embrace nuclear power if the primary fuel is thorium rather than uranium.

Christian Newswire — Amid mounting controversy among evangelical Christians over global warming and climate policy, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance presented “A Call to Truth, Prudence and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming” at the National Press Club Tuesday morning. The paper is a refutation of the Evangelical Climate Initiative’s “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action,” released last February, and a call to climate policies that will “better protect the world’s poor and promote their economic development.”

ISA’s 24-page paper has been endorsed by 130 leaders, including 111 evangelical theologians, pastors, climate scientists, environmental and developmental economists, and others, plus non-evangelical experts on climate change. The paper presents scientific, economic, ethical, and theological evidence that mandatory carbon-emissions reductions to mitigate global warming would “not only fail to achieve that end but would also have the unintended consequence of serious harm to the world’s poor, delaying for decades or generations their rise from poverty and its attendant high rates of disease and premature death, and robbing them of the very tools they need to protect themselves from catastrophes.” It argues that foreseeable warming will “probably be moderate, within the range of natural variation, and may on balance be more beneficial than harmful to humankind.”

During this year’s hurricane season, global warming will likely become a topic of discussion at dinner tables across the United States (and likely in other countries as well).

Al Gore recently released his documentary on climate change. “An Incovenient Truth” asserts that global warming is indeed a real occurance, and that it is being caused by CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere by factories, vehicles, etc. Gore also asserts that the majority of the “scientific community” agree that global warming is a human caused phenomenon. Tom Harris, writing for the Canada Free Press says that climatologists are beginning to get fed up with these assertions.

Harris argues that the so-called “majority” of scientists who are cited in reports like those in Gore’s film are not climatologists. They are very qualified in reporting the effects of climate change, but are not qualified to report on the causes of climate change. Reports that computer simulations predict massive climage change are also misleading. These simulations are not really predictions, they are scenarios. According to Dr. Tim Ball, climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, not only are these models only scenarios but “these models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios.” Ball claims that it is irresponsible that the researchers behind these simulations have allowed the public to think that their scenarios are predictions.

Graph of solar activity versus climate

Before I point you to the rest of the article, there’s a quote from a professor of climatology that I loved: “Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention.” That comes from Prof. Bob Carter.

Now, while I don’t endorse massive pollution of the environment on principle, I also don’t condone finger pointing at empty space (there is a big star that tends to have quite an impact…some people call it the Sun). That said, this is a great review and commentary on global warming that also cites several experts on climate change.

TerraPass is a way to assuage a guilty conscience caused by your car’s CO2 emissions. In the interest of trying to be balanced on the whole CO2 debate, here’s a link to their climate change blog with plenty of GW posts.

To each his own. But it sounds like a way for the common folk to buy into what Iain Murray calls "the new aristocracy:"

Al Gore justifies his enjoyment of a carbon-intensive lifestyle in a speech in the UK:

He said he was "carbon neutral" himself and he tried to offset any plane flight or car journey by "purchasing verifiable reductions in CO2 elsewhere".

Translation: I am rich enough to benefit from executive jets and Lincolns because I pay my indulgences. All you proles have to give up your cars, flights and air conditioning. The new aristocracy; there’s no other way to describe it.

I can’t afford a G-5, but thanks to TerraPass, I don’t have to give up my car or A/C now.

You can do whatever you want with your money, and obviously this isn’t the worst way to spend it. But I hope people buying this service will make sure it actually goes to alternative energy and doesn’t become just another trough to fund global warming politics.

"Indulgences" is an interesting choice of words, by the way. If you’re new to church history, Martin Luther’s stand against this method of buying your way out of a guilty conscience had him branded by the Catholic aristocracy as a heretic. The way the global warming debate is going, the heretic label will be plastered on anybody who defies the religion of climate change. Maybe it’s fair to place the blame squarely on false religion, which has set up this whole notion that guilt is something you can buy or work your way out of.

Christ is the only answer to guilt driven ecology. As EEN describes in this series of Bible passages, people are guilty of sin (including pollution). God loved us enough to send Jesus to tell us first hand about stewardship, and then pay the price for our guilt by dying on a cross. He sends the Spirit of a risen Christ to transform our lives and ultimately all of creation. Christian ecologists are motivated by love instead of guilt, living out our thankfulness for what God’s done for us by loving others and caring for what God has made.

So rather than only spending our money to "make a difference," maybe we should be spending more time on our knees getting to know the One who made us and everything around us, and find out what He wants us to do to be good stewards of it.

Look – You can toss a couple bucks in the offering plate and go home to watch football on a Sunday afternoon, or you can invest your life in a Christian community and volunteer your time. In the same way, you can toss your money at others to plant your tree for you, or you can spend a day picking up trash or planting trees yourself, and give God a chance to get you outside in his Creation for a while.

The choice is ours to make. The consequences are eternal. And as far as getting rid of that guilt is concerned, it doesn’t cost a red cent.

“Cultural institutions are latching on to the issue of global warming to provide a focus and urgency to their work. At a time when museums and heritage organisations feel somewhat outdated and directionless, global warming provides a quick-fix rallying point….

This is an almighty cop-out. Institutions are avoiding the challenge of making history and science attractive to the public. Instead of inspiring visitors, institutions end up hectoring and lecturing them.”

I have to admit I was skeptical myself of Gregg Easterbrook’s self-proclaimed “long record of opposing alarmism” regarding global warming. To be sure, a bit of my own research showed that Mr. Easterbrook has long opposed alarmism, just not of the global warming variety.

To the question, “Could an abrupt climate change really happen?,” the Pew Center on Global Climate Change answers, “Scientists have just begun to study the possibility of an abrupt climate change. But when scientists talk about abrupt climate change, they mean climate change that occurs over decades, rather than centuries. It’s too soon to know for certain whether abrupt climate change could occur, but if it does, it’s not expected to happen within the next several decades.”

In this article Easterbrook is really addressing the idea that a sudden climate flip “could happen as rapidly as over the course of a few years.” He himself acknowledges that “it’s reasonable to expect that global temperatures will get warmer, owing at least in part to artificial greenhouse gases.” That doesn’t sound like a skeptic to me, and that’s from a piece written almost three years ago.

If Easterbrook was a skeptic regarding climate change on a relatively lengthy time scale, then he was a rather private one on this point. The Commons Blog has picked up and expanded on this skepticism regarding Easterbrook’s supposedly “long record.”

In a recent interview with Giant magazine (June/July 2006, “Citizen Gore,” p. 56-57, text available here) about his new movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore answered a few questions. When asked what he would say to President Bush about climate change if he could:

I’d say that this climate crisis is really a planetary emergency, and that he ought to take it out of politics altogether. The civil rights issue really took hold when Dr. King defined it as a moral and spiritual issue, and this crisis must be redefined as a moral and spiritual issue because it involves who we are as human beings. Do we care about our children and grandchildren? Are we content to just look the other way when 100 years of science overwhelmingly points to the destruction our current pattern is causing? Most people, when they finally open their eyes and look at the truth of this, say, “We’ve got to change.” To make it a political issue is wrong and the current White House is doing that.

Of course, Mr. Gore’s campaign to popularize his message about global warming has everything to do with turning this into a political issue. This goes a long way in explaining what Heather Wilhelm calls a “strange bedfellows” phenomenon. When Ms. Wilhelm asks NAE Vice President for Governmental Affairs Richard Cizik about whether “evangelicals concerned that they’re putting too much faith in government,” he responds, “You know, I don’t hear that very often. I don’t think that’s a huge concern among most people. I think they’re enthusiastic about the progress we’re making.” Those evangelicals who have been “converted” to the global warming cause are providing that veneer of moral authority, which helps make this into more than a “political issue.”

When asked why some people still won’t accept the scientific evidence, Gore replies:

A lot of people don’t want to accept the truth so that they won’t have to take on board its moral imperatives. You may already know this, but there is an interesting way that the Chinese write the word crisis. They use two characters side by side, but the first character standing by itself means danger, and the second character by itself means opportunity. When you put them together, they mean crisis. In English, crisis means a sense of alarm or danger, but it doesn’t automatically communicate a sense that in danger there is always a sense of opportunity. I try to make a point when I talk about global warming that there really is a lot of opportunity. There will be new jobs, new technology, new improvements in our lives, and more importantly, there will be an opportunity to have a shared moral purpose. We would be able to speak to our grandchildren and tell them we did something on their behalf that was tough but we found a way to accomplish it.

Victor H. Mair, professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania, explodes the myth about the Chinese words for danger, opportunity, and crisis. But that may not be the only fiction that Mr. Gore is peddling in this interview.

Since Mr. Gore is engaging economic concerns to buttress his argument, let’s have a look. His basic economic argument is that political intervention into energy policy, specifically with regard to climate change, will have positive economic benefits, because of the opportunities provided by new research and technology. This is the same basic argument that Andy Crouch makes in a Christianity Today piece. It’s somewhat ironic that one of the major economic arguments against radically preemptive action against climate change is that of opportunity cost. This is a point made by Vernon L. Smith, a Nobel laureate and professor of economics and law at George Mason University. He speaks of a “rule of optimality,” and argues:

If we ignore this rule of optimality and begin abatement now for damages caused by emissions after 100 years, we leave our descendants with fewer resources – 100 years of return on the abatement costs not incurred – to devote to subsequent damage control. The critical oversight here is the failure to respect opportunity cost. Each generation must be responsible for the future effect of that generation’s emission damage. Earlier generations have the responsibility of leaving subsequent generations a capital stock that has not been diminished by incurring premature abatement costs.

The government could create “new” jobs by having people dig holes and fill them in again. The mere creation of jobs is an ambiguous phenomena. We have to ask whether these new jobs contribute something greater to the common good of society.

Mr. Gore and Rev. Cizik emphasize the moral and especially religious aspects of environmental stewardship, and in this they are right. And a basic element of Christian morality is a commitment to the truth. Rev. Cizik contends, “For those of us who oppose the hegemony of the naturalistic worldview, we should strongly consider spending less time debating one another over who is right about climate change and collaborate together to conquer the real enemy.” But who is right about climate change is of the utmost importance!

Gore is right (and Rev. Cizik is wrong) in recognizing that the truth about the reality, cause, and solution regarding global warming has a foundational significance for the shape of the debate. It’s not just about Christians versus naturalists. But Rev. Cizik is right in this sense: the truth about global warming should not obscure our commitment to the One who is Truth.